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Caring for yourself or for a loved one doesn’t have to be needlessly expensive, however the costs can start to mount up, especially if you are out of work due to helping to provide care yourself.

At Apex HSC we take all budgets into consideration when we draw up our individual care plans, ensuring that no care we provide for a person is out of their financial means. The added stress of money problems can seriously affect quality of life, which is why we like to remain in close contact with each and every person involved to ensure the care package we put together remains the best possible option for you and the care user.

Direct Payments

A great majority of people using care services will be entitled to direct payments from the local government. What this means in simple terms is that local councils are no longer able to arrange services for care users, instead they are allocated budgets to offer instead so that users can purchase the care they need for themselves.

People who are eligible for this option are:

Older people who have been assessed as needing community care services

Disabled people aged 16 and over

Families with disabled children for children’s services

Disabled parents for children’s services

Independent Living Fund

The Independent Living Fund is funding form the Government to support people with disabilities to live independently in their own homes. Payments are made to people with disabilities so they can afford the costs of a personal assistant or care agency to provide the support they need to remain living at home. You can find out more about the Independent Living Fund on the Government website by clicking here.

Benefits

There are a number of benefits offered by the government which can help towards paying for yours or your loved one’s healthcare. For more information on what you may be entitled to claim, visit: https://www.gov.uk/benefits-adviser

If you would like to talk to a trained advisor on finding quality health and social care for you or somebody you know, please call 0845 600 3041.

Apex Health + Social Care is committed to providing the best in home and healthcare. From social care to full-time domiciliary care, we look to provide only the highest quality care packages for every care user.

Over the past few months, government cuts throughout the NHS have led to a number of care homes being closed or reduced in size, leaving care users without proper, affordable and appropriate round-the-clock care.

These closures may not produce entirely negative effects though. Many government officials including the Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter have openly claimed that caring for the elderly at home could benefit families and care users more. With up to a third of all residential care users perfectly healthy and able to be cared for in their own homes, why are so many institutionalised early on into their old age?

Care at home is what we at Apex Health + Social Care recommend. As well as negating the potential upset and distress a complete move and life change would cause, being cared for in the home can improve recovery times and general health and morale by simply being more comfortable and settled at home.

Trained carers and healthcare professionals are still made available to patients choosing to remain in their homes, and this care can of course be complete 24 hours a day domiciliary care. This provides even greater levels of individual care and each care package can be tailored to suit individual needs.

Apex Health + Social Care is committed to providing the best in home and healthcare. From social care to full-time domiciliary care, we look to provide only the highest quality care packages for every care user.

For more information, please contact our main office on 0845 600 3041.

When a care plan is designed for any individual, it’s often the medication and healthcare aspects that take priority. Of course providing the correct medical care and attention for each client is of utmost importance, however we believe that social care is just as important to improve recovery times and to maintain a high standard of living.

Our Companionship Service is designed for people who do not need 24 hour personal care but sometimes struggle with daily activities while living at home and find their quality of life suffers as a result.

This service is especially invaluable to family members who are unable to visit regularly as it provides peace of mind knowing their loved one is being cared for.

Based around individual requirements, Apex HSC offers a range of services including daily routine reminders for medication, doctors’ appointments and other daily activities that will allow each client to remain independent. Carers are also able to help out with household tasks such as dusting, vacuuming, ironing and changing bed linen.

Social activities are also taken into consideration to ensure every client enjoys a full and enjoyable social life in and outside the home. This can include accompanying clients on day trips and outings.

Personal care is so important to help provide care users with the full and enjoyable independent life they deserve.

The tool promotes regular evaluation and regulated practice when it comes to wound care in a community setting and makes it easier to quickly evaluate the stages of healing and the care that is required by the patient.

Janine Shepherd, clinical lead for the tissue viability service at the Trust said of the tool: “I’m so pleased that implementation of the WHAM tool has been successful and it’s great that we are setting an example to other clinicians outside of the organisation.

“Our main aim was to collect useful and accurate information such as healing rates to support judgement and ensure consistent care is being delivered across the board.

“Documentation is really important in nursing practice and can help clinicians to identify trends and monitor outcomes whilst ensuring continuity of care for our service users.”

Implementation of the WHAM tool has improved record-keeping and enabled clinicians to measure and monitor wound healing rates within their teams across the region. helping care users and patients better chance of gaining quicker recovery times and dealing with less chances of infection.

The project was implemented in a staged approach across clinical settings which ensured consistently high standards for patients and enables people to receive care from different locations.

Marnie Nixon, assistant practitioner at Lancashire Care said: “Each element of the WHAM tool has been developed with our service users in mind as this is ultimately about improving their quality of life and treatment.”

The quality of life of patients and care users is of utmost importance to the NHS and to Apex HSC and we welcome the usage of such tools to enable better care to be given to patients with more positive outcomes and greater synchronicity between care givers, care professionals and GPs and nurses.